We all love a good David versus Goliath story, where somebody small and insignificant rises up against the giants and achieves greatness.
I mean a total stranger achieving such greatness. Nobody likes it when a mortal enemy, relative or — worst of all — a close friend hits the jackpot, but the story I need to tell you this week concerns none of your friends, foes or relatives.
It is truly uplifting, and don’t we need a little uplifting? I would like to draw your attention away from all those negative stories that have littered the front pages — the Nakhon Pathom rapist, the money-hungry Suvarnabhumi taxi-drivers, the visiting D-list American government official who acted like his opinion mattered — and hear my heart-warming story of struggle. Two stories, in fact, both involving Thai teenagers.
I rubbed shoulders with the protagonists of story number one in the hallowed halls of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration just last week on a courtesy visit to Pusadee Tamthai, the deputy Bangkok Governor.
I admire Ms Pusadee for her work in elevating the quality of education in the BMA’s 437 schools, where budgets are tight and resources are stretched to the limit.
These are schools heavily populated by children of the lower classes; labourers, street vendors and itinerant workers, for example. These students are not expected to achieve too much. Even when they do, they often get kicked in the guts.
A case in point were the three students I saw briefly as they left Ms Pusadee’s office (actually, I saw just the backs of their heads, since they were rushing out as I was rushing in). They were two girls — Kannikar Udom and Jewarin Feemeuchang — along with a boy named Thanakorn Komsan, all aged 15 years, and all Year 9 students of Thainiyom Songkhrao School in Bangkhen district.
About the middle of last year these three friends came up with an idea.
It was a robot that was as ingenious as it was ludicrous. They designed what they called a “Massage Robotic” for use by astronauts.
“Astronauts spend a lot of time in space and get stressed,” Miss Kannikar explained. “We thought up a robot that would massage the shoulders and arm muscles of the astronaut, making the astronaut feel more relaxed, and thus would enable him to do his job better.”
“Or her,” added Miss Jewarin. “There are female astronauts, too.”
They researched then applied the principles of traditional Thai massage to ensure the robot would massage “in a Thai way”. Despite a zero budget, the three friends created a prototype. They entered it in a national robotics competition held by the Education Ministry in November last year.
These three students of frayed-at-the-edges Thainiyom Songkhrao School went up against the crème of Thai schools, both public and private, including those with excellent science facilities and courses.
You guessed it; they won.
They were one of two schools selected to represent Thailand in the World Robot Olympiad to be held at the end of November in Sochi, Russia, only two weeks away. “We couldn’t believe we’d be going overseas,” said Miss Kannikar. “It was a dream come true.” She and her two friends had exactly one day basking in the glory of their success … before the axe fell.
The school had to find 300,000 baht to pay for the students and teachers to travel to Russia for the four-day event starting on Nov 20. There were no funds, they were told, and with two weeks to go before the Sochi Olympiad, the situation was hopeless.
In such cases, more affluent schools would draw from funds or approach wealthy alumni for donations. There are government funds for such events, but have you ever tried applying for government funding? Go outside and find a snail in your garden and observe it for an hour. Such is the pace at which financial requests get processed in this country.
The school informed the Thai Robotics competition they had no money to go. The Thai Robotics organisers decided that the next school down the list — the one that came third — could send their students instead.
“Over my dead body,” announced Thainiyom Songkhroa School.
There’s nothing like a rival school stealing your thunder and making you lose face to kick-start a scramble for funds. Those three kids had won the competition. They were going to go.
Finally the BMA came to the rescue and found 300,000 baht. On Nov 19, 2014, three little Bangkhen ragamuffins who’d never set foot out of the country boarded a plane bound for freezing cold Russia. They were armed with borrowed jackets and one crazy pie-in-the-sky yet utterly unique idea.
The 11th annual World Robot Olympiad attracted 48 countries and 367 teams. In their booth our three children wore quickly stitched-together outfits that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Lost In Space episode. Wearing bright blue tops with a lightning bolt of silver, the two girls attracted attention by performing traditional Thai dancing (the origins of the robot, remember).
For the boy, his job was to sit in a chair as the robot massaged him while the girls did all the work, something of a microcosm of Thai society really.
Curiosity got the better of other entrants and soon the booth was crowded with onlookers.
But it is here we must leave the Thainiyom Songkhrao kids and travel deep into the mountains of northern Thailand, where our second story starts.
Only two weeks ago the National Student English Debating Competition was held in a Sukhumvit Road hotel. It is a government event thought up to prepare Thai students for the upcoming Asean Economic Community that starts on the last day of this year.
The finals featured eight teams, two from each part of Thailand.
Being an English competition, it was generally populated by teams of students who’d spent time abroad or those from better schools. With the exception of one.
Natcha Charoenthongmankhong, aged 15, was a student of Pamai Uthit School in the far-flung mountains of Tak. Her team comprised her younger brother Wattanyu, 14, and her best friend Paveena Achakhiri, 15.
Pamai Uthit is a tiny, tiny school far from civilisation. They may not possess resources, but it is more than made up for in enthusiasm. The team rose up through the heats of the Northern Competition to become one of two Northern Thailand teams heading for Bangkok.
What made Miss Natcha and her two team members unique in the national competition was not only the fact they were from a little no-name rural school up against the big well known ones. The real surprise is that Thai is not the three students’ first language.
Miss Natcha, Mr Wattanyu and Miss Paveena are hill tribe children. They are Mong people. They hold Thai passports, but their first language is Mong. Their second is Thai. English is a distant third.
Despite this they held their own in the competition, debating in English and pushing themselves to the forefront.
Those are my two uplifting stories for this week.
You know the outcomes.
The Massage Robotic team from far-flung Thailand took home the Creativity Award in the Junior Category at the World Robotics Olympiad. Meanwhile, the three Mong hill tribe kids trounced the competition and clinched the National Debating Award.
It is kind of a sad comment on we humans that our news must be dominated by serial rapists, evil cabbies and lacklustre American politicians. The six children I mentioned in this column measured hardly a blip in the media, but they are true inspirations for anyone who believes only the wealthy and well-connected can win.
“Don’t ever tell me these kids have no future,” Ms Pusadee said this week. “Don’t ever look down on them. They are jewels.” n
